Sam Hamill

Akiko Yosano

Keiko Matsui Gibson

Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko

River of Stars

Matsuo Basho

Presents translations of more than two hundred Japanese haiku.

Haiku by Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets

The Sound of Water

J. P. Seaton

In this compact paperback edition, Sam Hamill and J. P. Seaton showcase the rich variety of Zen poetry from China and Japan by men and women, monks, royalty, and laypeople, from the beginnings of Zen to the early twentieth century. Hamill - the founding editor of Copper Canyon Press - and Seaton - a leading expert on Chinese poetry in America - provide introductions that set the poets and their work in historical and philosophical context.

The Poetry of Zen

Written by court princesses, exiled officials, Zen priests, and recluses, the 150 poems translated here represent the rich diversity of Japan’s poetic tradition. Varying in tone from the sensuous and erotic to the profoundly spiritual, each poem captures a sense of the poignant beauty and longing known only in the fleeting experience of the moment. The translator has selected these five-line tanka—one of the great traditional verse forms of Japanese literature—from sources ranging from the classical imperial anthologies of the eighth and tenth centuries to works of the early twentieth century.

Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing

A collection of poems from around the world that celebrate the erotic spirit in all its forms.

An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing

The Erotic Spirit

Collected Poems

Habitation

Avocations collects the best of Sam Hamill's prose on poetry over the last 18 years, presenting insightful readings of Kenneth Rexroth, Denise Levertov, Odysseas Elytis, Matsuo Basho, Kobayashi Issa, John Logan and many others together with critical commentary on poetry in translation and the practice of poetry in general.

On Poets and Poetry

Avocations

Bashō's Ghost

America Zen

Jerome P. Seaton

The Essential Chuang Tzu

A chronological collection of the poet's work which demonstrates his transition from early autobiographical pieces to works that show his interest in Eastern thought and poetry

Poems, 1970-1995

Destination Zero

Li Po (701-62) and Tu Fu (712-70) were two of the best known poets of China's greatest literary era. For over 20 years they carried on a conversation in poetry, and this book records 90 poems, 45 by each poet, in which they discuss many subjects, including their friendship.

Li Po and Tu Fu, a Friendship in Poetry

Endless River

"Quintessential classical Japanese haiku--selected and translated by one of America's premier poet-translators--now available in a pocket edition. In this collection of haiku, translator Sam Hamill has compiled the best from the tradition, spanning the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, with particular focus on the three great masters: Basho, Buson, and Issa. Based on images from nature, the poems address the themes of joy, temporality, beauty, wonder, loneliness, and loss. Haiku may be the most popular and widely recognizable poetic form in the world. In just three lines a great haiku presents a crystalline moment of image, emotion, and awareness. Elements of compassion, silence, and a sense of temporality often combine to reveal a quality of mystery. Just as often, haiku may bring a startling insight into the ordinary, or a flash of humor. Collected here are over two hundred of the best haiku of Japanese literature--written by the great masters of the genre. The featured poets are Basho; Buson, Issa, Moritake, Soin, Sanpu, Kikaku, Ransetsu, Kyorai, Raizan, Kakei, Onitsura, Taigi, Chiyo, Sogetsuni, Sogi, Fuhaku, Teiga, Kikusha-ni, Tayo-jo, ha, and Shiki. This is a pocket-size reissue of The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 1995)"--

The Pocket Haiku

A collection of verse--drawn from classical, medieval, and modern sources--translated from Japanese covers lines about spirituality, love, lust, and many other themes. 15,000 first printing.

Love Poems from the Japanese

Part poetry, part paradox, always stirring and profound, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching has been inspiring readers since it was written over two thousand years ago. This masterpiece is also one of the most frequently translated books in all of history, in part because the multiple meanings of the Chinese characters make it impossible to translate into a Western language in a strictly literal way. For this reason, many translations are either too loosely interpretive or are too overloaded with notes, thereby losing the clarity of the terse poetry found in the original Chinese. The extraordinary strength of Sam Hamill’s translation is that it has captured the poetry of Lao Tzu’s original without sacrificing the resonance of the text’s many meanings and possible interpretations. The result is a beautiful and deeply meditative rendering, one that is a delight to read over and over again. Accompanying Sam Hamill’s translation are seventeen Chinese characters brushed by one of the great masters of calligraphy, Kazuaki Tanahashi. Hamill provides a comment for each character, giving the reader a fuller sense of the richness of the original text and insight into the process of translation itself.

A New Translation

Tao Te Ching

Washington State Poetry-in-the-Schools

Yesterday's Faces

Copper Canyon's 25th anniversary anthology gathers nearly 300 poems by over 100 distinguished poets and translators.

Twenty-five Years of Poetry from Copper Canyon Press

The Gift of Tongues

The Chuang Tzu has been translated into English numerous times, but never with the freshness, accessibility, and accuracy of this remarkable rendering. Here the immediacy of Chuang Tzu's language is restored in a idiom that is both completely fresh and true to the original text. This unique collaboration between one of America's premier poet-translators and a leading Chinese scholar presents the so-called "Inner Chapters" of the text, along with important selections from other chapters thought to have been written by Chuang Tzu's disciples.

Poetry. East Asia Studies. Translated from the Chinese and with an introduction by Sam Hamill. This is a new and revised edition, originally published by BOA Editions in 2000. "In Crossing the Yellow River, Sam Hamill remaps Chinese poetry for our time. Anyone who writes poetry, or who cares about it, must have this book. It is one of the essential works of our time."—Jim Harrison

Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese

Crossing the Yellow River

Drawn from classical, medieval, and modern sources--including the imperial collections of the "Manyoshu" and "Kokinshu--"the poems in this collection are some of the greatest love poems from the Japanese tradition. The poems range in tone from the spiritual longing of an isolated monk to the erotic ecstasy of a court princess--but share the extraordinary simplicity and luminosity of language that marks Kenneth Rexroth's verse style. An introduction by the poet and translator Sam Hamill, the editor of this collection, and short biographies of the poets are included. The Shambhala Library is a series of exquisitely designed and produced cloth editions of the world's spiritual and literary classics, both ancient and modern. Perfect for collecting or as gifts, each volume features a sewn binding, decorative endsheets, and a ribbon marker--a delightful-to-hold 4 1/4 x 6 3/4 trim size.

Sam Hamill

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